Looking back through the Caithness archives of the John O'Groat Journal
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Punishment fears allayed – from the Groat of July 21, 1922
The local authority intended to provide school stationery for “necessitous children” even though it was aiming to reduce expenditure on such items.
The cost-cutting measure, which was to see pupils provide their own stationery, had prompted fears that poor pupils would be punished by teachers for not having these items when they turned up in class. At a meeting of the Caithness Education Authority, Mr T Mackay moved that the authority “strongly disapprove of teachers punishing those pupils, if any, who do not provide these necessary articles of school equipment that have been moved from the list of free books and stationery, and that the authority provide slates and slate pencils free of charge for such pupils in all the school under their charge”.
Mr Mackay feared that confusion might arise in schools where pupils did not have these items. However, Mr McHardy, director of education, did not believe there was a teacher who would punish a child for being unable to afford stationery and books.
Home ‘ripe for development’ – from the Groat of July 21, 1972
Naver House, the new home for senior citizens in Thurso, was to be formally opened in August, taking in residents from Forse House in Latheron, and so leaving the latter surplus to requirements.
At a meeting of Caithness County Council, members agreed “there was a general feeling among them” that Forse House should be sold. One councillor suggested that this would be an “ideal opportunity to interest some of the holiday development companies in not only the house but the grounds, as all services were laid on”.
A private housing development was suggested as an ideal use, while another member thought the Youth Hostels Association might be interested as there was a need in Caithness for another hostel to supplement the service given by the one in Canisbay.
It was stated that there was very little development on the southern side of the county and so “every opportunity should be welcomed by the council”.
The council had bought Forse House and its 21-acre grounds for £5000 in 1946 from the William Stanley Baird Trustees.
Cabinet committee role for MP –from the Groat of July 25, 1997
Local MP Robert Maclennan was set to become involved in government for the first time since the 1970s when he served as a junior minister at the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection.
It had emerged that the MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross was expected to join a Cabinet committee as part of a historic act of co-operation between the government and the Liberal Democrats. The move was announced by Prime Minister Tony Blair, although it was stressed it would not be tantamount to a pact between Labour and the Liberals that occurred 20 years before.
Elsewhere, a scientist from Caithness was to be the opening speaker at an international conference in Ukraine about the effect of radioactive contamination on public health. Dr Eric Voice was to report on a Royal Society research programme which had examined every nuclear test explosion and attempted to plot the extent and distribution of radioactive fallout and its risk to populations.
Dr Voice, who lived in Scrabster, had regularly visited Ukraine after the explosion in Chernobyl to study the distribution of the man-made radioactivity in the environment.
